Target employee drops off 'Black Thursday' petition

MINNEAPOLIS - Can 350,000 signatures convince one of America's biggest retailers to change its mind, a decision that would put it at a multi-million dollar holiday disadvantage?

That's what Casey St. Clair wants to find out.

On Monday the 6-year Target employee from Corona, Calif. hand-delivered more than 350,000 signatures collected on her Change.org petition to the company headquarters in downtown Minneapolis.

The petition, which she carried to the office of Target President & CEO Greg Steinhafel, asks Target to reverse its decision to open at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving night.

In a written statement, Target Vice President of Human Resources Tim Curoe said "The enormity of asking some of our store teams to work on Thanksgiving night is not lost on us. We recognize some team members are cutting short time with their families to work. And so, once again, to our team, and to their families and friends, we say thank you."

Curoe went on to say that company-wide there are more employees that want to work Black Friday than there are shifts to fill.

St. Clair says her experience as a Target employee is much different than the one described by Curoe.

"Up until a few days ago, there was a sign at my Target store listing blackout dates that employees couldn't request off, and Thanksgiving was one of them," St. Clair said. "If that's not a policy mandating people work on Thanksgiving, I don't know what is."

More than 100 petitions have recently been launched on Change.org asking major retailers including Target, Walmart, Sears, and Kohl's to "save Thanksgiving" and open their doors on Friday instead of Thanksgiving Day.

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